Update, September 23. The search is still going on. Nepal's disaster authority now counts 1,451 people dead and 5,786 missing, 636 of them foreign nationals. The Prithvi Highway reopened at Krishnabhir on September 17, and our Langtang, Trishuli and Tibet trips are running again on adjusted routes. For which regions are open this season and how roads and flights are running, read Trekking in Nepal This Autumn: What to Know in 2026.
On the morning of August 26, a piece of the glacier on Langtang Lirung broke away. It fell more than a kilometer and hit the valley floor with enough force to register on seismographs as a magnitude 5.2 event. Seven minutes later, the flood reached the border at Rasuwagadhi. It then ran the length of the Trishuli, through Syafrubesi, Dhunche, Betrawati and Trishuli Bazar, and kept going for a hundred kilometers.
When we first wrote this, on September 5, more than 950 people were confirmed dead and close to 5,000 were still missing. Those numbers have grown since, as we feared they would.
We are writing this because guests have been asking, and because we do not think a company that calls itself SherpaHolidays should say nothing.
Why this one is close to us
Langtang is the valley we send people to when they want the Himalaya without the Lukla flight. It is a long day's drive from Kathmandu to Syafrubesi, and then you walk up through Tamang villages into a valley that ends at a wall of ice.
The first thing we did on the morning of the 26th was start calling. We are relieved to say that the families and the people we work with in Nepal are safe. None of them were in serious danger.
We say that plainly because it is the first thing guests ask, and because it would be strange to write about this and not answer the question. But we also say it knowing that a few valleys over, hundreds of families cannot say the same, and thousands are still waiting for news. We know how lucky we are, and it puts us in a position to help.
It is also a valley that has done this before. In April 2015, the earthquake sent an avalanche off the same mountain onto Langtang village, and the village was buried. The people who rebuilt it are the people who were on the road along the Trishuli on August 26.
Where things stand
The search is still going. Nepal put more than 18,000 rescuers into the valley and accepted specialist teams from India, China, Australia and South Korea. Forty-one bridges were lost. The Prithvi Highway, the road that connects Kathmandu to Pokhara and the west, was cut at Krishnabhir for 18 days. It reopened to two-way traffic on September 17, on a temporary gravel section with several one-lane stretches, so the drive is slower than it used to be.
Right after the flood we paused our Langtang Valley Trek, our Trishuli rafting trip, and our overland trips to Tibet. Every guest booked on those was contacted and offered a refund, a new date, or a different trip, whichever they preferred. All three are now running again, on routes adjusted around the closed roads and the border crossing. While the highway was closed, our trips to Pokhara and Chitwan flew instead. If your trip includes that drive, ask us how your group will travel. Our guide to trekking in Nepal this autumn has the latest on every region, road and route.
What we are asking of you
We have two requests.
The first is to help. The Nepal Red Cross Society is the largest responder on the ground in Rasuwa and Nuwakot. Their volunteers have been doing the evacuations, the search, and the distribution of tarpaulins, blankets and drinking water, and they are the ones who will still be there when the need turns to shelter before winter. If you give, give to them directly. Do not give to us.
The second is not to cancel a trip to a part of Nepal that was not touched by this. The Everest region is a different valley system and was not affected. Neither was Annapurna, Mustang, Manaslu or the far west. Tourism is how a lot of mountain families earn their living, and a wave of cancellations in Solukhumbu does nothing for a family in Rasuwa. It just takes income away from people who are, right now, sending what they can to Rasuwa themselves.
How to give
Please check that you are on the organization's real website before giving. The Kathmandu Post has warned that disaster fundraising is a common target for scams in the first weeks.
We will update this post again when the search ends.
The SherpaHolidays family
